


The Gift of Bloodbending

by motherofsirens



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motherofsirens/pseuds/motherofsirens
Summary: ATLA BIGBANG 2020What if Hama had been written by someone who had sympathy for her and understood her? What if Katara had continued finding solace in her? How would have tbings been different?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: ATLA Big Bang 2020





	The Gift of Bloodbending

****

**SEEING THE CAMPFIRE**

  1. **AS A STAR IN THE SKY**



In the Fire Nation on a hill, there are four kids who are just trying to live. One of them is marked by an arrow and is said he’s going to upend a tyrannical King, the other is a boy who thinks himself a man, the third is a girl who sees with her feet and palms and the last is the girl and, oh, she’s so very young but she’s used to mothering everyone without a mother herself to hug. They’re all important but only one name you need to remember the most; Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, the girl with the sky and the oceans and all the pain in the world in her eyes.

  1. **THROUGH OLD AND SUNKEN EYES**



Hama is watching the children. The skin of her hands is dressed in wrinkles and as she’s clutching at the foliage they look as though an extension of branches and leaves. The moonlight paints them all the same blue— the warm fire paints the children bright. There’s a sweet ache in her hurt as though the heat is chipping away at some long grown rust. She was about to go back to the house from a night of brutal yet necessary work. There’s something familiar about two of the four kids, dark skinned and blue-eyed. Brother and sister probably. The girl especially, oh the girl, she has features that remind her of home although she doesn’t know why. It’s been so long and her memory is a haze— she has forgotten even what home entails! She wants to near them but she doesn’t want to cause any fear. They must have plenty of that already. Mere children wandering this forest must be parentless and foreign; no parent would let their child close to where danger stays.

They’re sharing tales of horror and the old and weary yet resilient woman understands why. When your reality is too unsure and too scary you want something else to distract you from the freight; to make you scared as though you aren’t enough in real life; to make you delude yourself into thinking this is your only source of fear. She has been there— she has felt like them.

The stories themselves start off weak and don’t match the children’s variety of experienced terrors. Hama has to bite her lip from snickering at them as she’s looking over with nostalgia. There’s sweat on her palms as she longs for something she doesn’t know.   
  
And then the taller of the two girls start.   
  


  1. **IN THE WORDS OF A MOTHERLESS DAUGHTER**  
  




Katara doesn’t know why but she feels very strongly the need to bring down the mood; there’s a feeling inside her chest and a weight between her shoulder blades- she’s feeling constricted. Her days in the Fire Nation have been hard on her and she thinks the thread keeping her insides together is being unspooled. So, she tells the story her mother had told her of a little girl— her mother’s friend, Nini- who snuck out during a snowstorm and got lost but her ghost didn’t and it was said to roam looking for her mother in caves and over rocks. _ It was true _ , she remarks to her friends/ family/ companions.  _ She was mom’s friend! Nini was real. One second she was and the next she was gone. _

When it’s over all three stare at her warily taken aback at how fast she turned the mood, on how easily she told that tale, on how eerie and likely it seems for a helpless child to be lost in the midst of disaster. There’s a silence between them, and then Toph jumps.   
  
“I feel voices! Voices under the mountain!”

**DELTA**

  1. **THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER**



Before Katara has the time to think of a response a woman appears from within the foliage, hair white and long, back bent and old, fingers wrinkly and long. Katara is frozen but she doesn’t know why. Sokka is the first one to be set into motion and speech, Toph is ready to fight, Aang is— as always— wide-eyed and she is frozen. Something inside that woman speaks to her but she can’t tell what and why. They all talk to the old woman but she stays still. She has her hands raised up in the air and Katara’s first instinct is to see it as a threat until the woman responds. Katara would describe her voice as homely and worn.

“I’m Hama and I don’t mean any harm,” she said calmly. “But I couldn't help but notice you’re four children all alone. I have an inn and I'd take care of you for free if you came in— I won’t be able to live with my conscience if I leave you here all alone.” 

The kids look at each other, Katara and Sokka as the eldest and most responsible of the bunch are the ones responsible. She looks at the woman again and her eyes seem so kind and she thinks of Combustion Man, Ozai, The Fire Nation that doesn’t want her alive and it’s at this second glance at her that Katara caves in and signals for Sokka to come near so she can whisper, “I think it’s the best chance we have at survival.” Her brother steps back and nods.

As they reach the village Katara is shocked by the amount of barred and locked huts. She always thought people from rural areas didn’t safeguard their homes that much— but then again everything was different in that country. Topsy-turvy. She would ask Hama that if she didn’t fear she would betray herself. 

Once they’re safely inside Hama boils them some tea and they all put palms around mugs and noses over steam and feel warmer than they have felt in months and it’s only then that Katara begins to loosen the corded muscles in her back.

  1. **A PEBBLE RIPPLES ON A LAKE**



Hama knows the children are foreigners even if they haven't caught up on the fact. Her bones knew the two siblings are from her home even before the girl’s story; it's a path she thought she had long since forgotten but turns out it just needed to be dusted off and put to use. Her eyesight may not be as clear as it once was and her hearing not as sharp as it used to be in her youth, but she knew it the way she knew she was real— and it had her feeling alive for the first time in decades. 

They still look skittish sitting around her wooden table and she knows only the black-haired boy with the bandana would maybe break the silence but he's staring at the two kids from her homeland as though waiting for their permission. She decides to bring him out of his misery. 

"There's someone or something in the woods who are kidnapping people— especially, those unfamiliar with the territory," Hama says and looked around to make sure they were all listening. "You're safer in the inn with me for however long you want."

The revelation leaves them all a little dumbfounded and they don’t know what to say but she can tell they’re smart and curious and already have questions- but they’re also tired and in need of proper sleep.

"But we don't have any money. . ." A tentative addition from the younger of the two boys.

"I don’t expect any,” she says with a smile and her lips twitch a little bit higher. How she wanted to reach out and smooth those creases on his forehead; it broke her heart to see those children like that, having to playact at a watered down but brutal version of adulthood. She will have to go slow, wounded as they are, kids seek gentle and patient hands.

When they all finish their tea she points them to their rooms and washes their cups alone even if the girl from before who introduced herself as Katara volunteered to help— it’s her inn, it’s her job and she wants to take care of them.

**IN SYNC**

The next morning Katara wakes up on a bed and goes downstairs to a warm and well-cooked breakfast only to find out she’s the last one there. She’s ushered into a chair by a grandmotherly Hama with a wooden spoon. She’s still wearing travel weary clothes but somehow feels cleaner— there’s an air of hopefulness around the air. Katara smiles at the older woman after eating her breakfast while the others have long finished and are in a conversation not paying attention to her.   
  
“Thank you for this Hama. We could never repay you!”   
  
The older woman’s grin widens and her eyes are shining— she makes Katara feel smaller in a way she hasn’t felt in a while and it’s welcome. Hama untied the apron she was wearing and hung it over the back of a chair.

“Today I’m going to the market. Do you want to come with me? Lately, I’ve had to make way more trips; my arms can only carry so many things. It’d be a delight to have some company during my routine rounds too.” 

“I can help carry the produce!” Sokka. Her big brother, always willing to step in and be someone people can lean on, had answered before Katara could accept or deny. Her smile fell. He was right though, he would be way more helpful than her or anyone else. That didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed though. Hama glanced at her.

“Well, what about the rest of you? Are you coming too?” Katara perked up at this.

“I’d love to,” she said as she gripped the edge of the table, her smile shy.

Aang and Toph decided they wanted to come along too and Katara quickly found herself getting up and out. Hama interweaves her arms with both of the Water Tribe siblings’ to walk with ease and Katara finds herself wondering whether her own grandmother needs help too and how there’s something about the innkeeper that reminds her of the other woman.

The market is busy and full of laughter and they all relish in the chance to have fun— not enough of actually helping Hama around other than Sokka’s part happens and Katara has her suspicions that the old woman wanted the joy that seems to waft through the air to surround her too in a way. It must have been lonely walking alone among groups. How had she ended up here, alone and friendless? Had her husband died? Had they had no children? Or did they die from famine? The innkeeper hadn’t opened up but Katara didn’t complain; they were keeping things from her as she was— probably— keeping from them.

The conversation between Hama and Katara consisted of the inbetweens of the village and the market, the moisture in the air that was palpable, the silly antics of a child and its pet that his mother so obviously did not like but put up with and everything meaningless and pointless they had both obviously missed for a while. They didn’t cease talking until they returned home. Through their outing, they had only had interruptions from Sokka, usually whenever he had a witty quip to make as he alternated between them and Aang with Toph who were joking around among themselves. Hama had to leave again for some errands soon after putting away all the new produce and the four friends had been left to themselves.   
  
Katara decided to lie down on her cot for a bit as she hadn’t done in a while, knowing she’s not neglecting any responsibilities but that simply she is being taken care of. She could hear the murmur of the other’s voices and realized these past fifteen or so hours had been the least she had talked to them throughout their whole journey. Only recently had Toph accused her of smothering her and now Katara could let her hair down knowing that all of them would be taken care of. She closes her eyes and spreads her arms feeling the coolness of the mattress beneath her palms. She’s at peace.

  
“Ouch!”

Katara’s eyes fly open at the beginning of a commotion and she almost flies off the bed running to her friends. She has a vague image of them tampering with things that don’t belong to them and causing injury to themselves. She only wishes it’s nothing that will make them seem unkind in Hama’s eyes.   
  
“ _ What have you done Twinkle Toes?”  _ is what Katara hears right before she enters one of the spacier rooms only to find Aang and Toph in the midst of dozens of glass shards with the empty husk of a mirror on the wall.

“What have both of you done to Hama’s inn?” 

Both heads swivel towards her direction in shock as though they, too, had forgotten how responsible Katara was for the first day. Toph flinches and it’s only then that Katara takes notice of the red spots on the wooden floor, the blood dripping from the sole of Toph’s foot. She feels dread. She doesn’t know what to do.

It’s just their luck that at this moment Hama enters the room. Katara bows her head in shame.

"Mmm. . . let's see what's going on here," she says kindly and assesses the situation. Her attention snags on Toph's cut and her eyes widen a litte. She turns to Aang. "Help her come over here without stepping on any more."

Katara bends down in order to help her younger friend up. Toph puts her arm around Aang's shoulders and he hugs her waist. They're ready to pull her up when Hama's words slice through the air.

"Not like that, boy. You know you can help her over without having to step on the glass." A meaningful look. "I know."

Katara's breath catches, Aang's eyes widen and all of them are at a standstill until Toph cries out and Katara can see the moment he decides that he will listen to Hama. So, he makes a windball to get on and holds Toph with him. Katara turns her gaze on their elderly host; there's not a single flicker of surprise on her face. This way Toph is led to the nearest cot and the young waterbender sees her host pull the glass out of her friend's foot and hold it steady with one hand. She sees Hama raise her other hand afterward and. . . heal the scar!

"How did you do this?" Aang exclaims before Katara even has a chance to process what she just saw. 

"The same way you all do. I grew and I learned," is what the old woman replies with as if it's just as simple again before she takes Katara's arm and presses her pal over a gash she hadn't noticed in her hurry to help Toph. She feels a tingle over the edges of the split skin as Hama's hand hovers above it and she can sense the blood in her veins pumping a little faster. She can't take her eyes away from the healed forearm.

"Blood," Hama finally says as everyone else is too stupefied to contribute, "is just water that we inherit."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you're here I'm so happy!! This initially was all one part but due to a certain software that glitches after 3 months of use (the name of which I think I can't say due to AO3 policies) I lost all of my process and had to play catch up in a short period of time. Thank you to the mods of the Atla Big Bang for this opportunity, justalittleinovermyhead (1. 2) and imanidraws (3.) on T/mblr for the wonderful companion art!!!


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